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The organization noted that nearly 50,000 consumers joined an online petition last month favoring the FCC's privacy rules. And in a nationally representative CR Consumer Voices Survey, 65 percent of Americans said they were either slightly or not at all confident that their personal data is private and not distributed without their knowledge. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson before the vote on Wednesday said the rules put American consumers — each one of us who pay these monthly fees for their broadband service — in the driver's seat of how our personal data is used and shared. Is that too much to ask ? I don't think so. The resolution will still have to pass the House of Representatives, which it is likely to do, and then be signed by President Trump. ISPs have been under the FCC's jurisdiction only since 2015, when they werereclassified as public utilitiesunder something called Title II of the Communications Act. Meantime, web-based companies such as Amazon and Google are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission( FTC), and face less stringent requirements. Republican legislators and lobbyists from cable, telecom, and advertising industries say that difference in regulation is unfair. Sen. John Thune( R-SD) said Wednesday that the FCC had unfairly distorted the marketplace when it imposed unnecessarily onerous privacy restrictions on broadband providers while leaving the rest of the internet under the strong and successful regime at the FTC. The federal government could move authority over ISPs back to the FCC. However, that would be a complex process, and one not favored by advocacy groups, including Consumers Union. Any fondness for the FTC’s approach to privacy is merely support for dramatically weaker privacy protections favored by most corporations, the organization wrote in a letter to senators earlier this week. There is no question that consumers favor the FCC’s current broadband privacy rules. The measure passed by a 50-48 vote along party lines The Senate Thursday. To roll back the rules, Republican senators employed a legislative maneuver that prevents the FCC from adopting ‘ similar ’ rules, even far weaker ones, to protect internet users in the future.